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international women's day

This International Women’s Day, we want to celebrate Female Climate Change Fighters. In places like Bolivia, the Philippines and Zimbabwe, small-scale female farmers show resilience and strength as they battle the effects of climate change and make their livelihoods happen despite unpredictable weather, dry spells and extreme flooding.

In spite of the old adage “don’t count your chickens,” these days we take chickens for granted. Walk into any supermarket in European and North American cities and increasingly across the developing world and you will find them in serried ranks in their plastic packaging. A generation or two ago, chickens were a luxury item; nowadays, a chicken costs less than an hours’ minimum wage of a UK worker ($9.52).

When I was studying at a university in Bangladesh back in the 1980s, the university had enforced a ‘sunset rule’ for women students. Which in practice meant that the gates of the women’s residence hall would close at sunset, after which no students were allowed to enter or leave the grounds of the residence hall. A perfect rule to keep female students invisible from public places, events and even from libraries. The rule was introduced to ‘protect’ women and keep them ‘safe.’

When it comes to the role of women in society, the East African country of Somalia receives a great deal of negative attention. Given that the country has suffered from years of conflict, and is currently enduring a food crisis, it certainly is a difficult, sometimes dangerous environment where women can be left vulnerable.

Boundaries become seamless on 8 March – International Women's Day. Millions of women, men, boys, girls, from across over 30 countries, in different time zones, from diverse ethnic, linguistic, cultural and economic backgrounds are coming together to celebrate, to show solidarity, and to recognize the rights, the dreams, the aspirations and empowerment of small-scale women farmers and producers.